Are Axon Cameras Replacing Flock Cameras?

Last verified: September 5, 2026. By Abbas Khan, who covers SLED buying for Civic IQ. He works from primary records: council and board agendas, adopted budgets, and public purchase orders. Every count below is credited to the group that made it, with its date.

Which cities have actually switched to Axon?

Three are documented in public reporting with enough detail to check. That is the whole named list as of September 5, 2026.

That is a thin base for a nationwide trend story, and the trend stories know it. 404 Media, which set the framing in August 2026, called it “a handful of cities.” A Jalopnik piece from September 5, 2026 ran under a headline about cameras coming down “around the country” and names only Denver. The pattern is the same across the coverage. A national headline rests on one well-documented case.

That is not proof the shift is fake. Denver is a major metro. The vote was close and contested. A 12-month replacement contract in a city that size is a real signal. It is proof that nobody has counted it.

Why do the cancellation numbers disagree so much?

Because the trackers count different things, and none of them count contract awards. Here is every published figure side by side.

Three problems, all of which a procurement analyst will spot at once.

First, the totals do not reconcile. DeFlock stood at about 98 since 2021 as of August 3. Secure Justice reports 90 terminations during August, and 214 since 2021. Add the first two and you get about 188, not 214. Two trackers cover the same period, publish four weeks apart, and differ by roughly 26 jurisdictions. Two counts of the same month differ too, at 90 against at least 93.

Second, the definitions are not the same event. Terminated a contract. Did not renew. Switched cameras off. Ended a relationship. Those are four different outcomes, and they mean four different things for a vendor’s revenue. The Washington Examiner notes that several jurisdictions switched cameras off “while they work with Flock to ensure privacy needs are met.” Those are still Flock customers. In at least one tracker they count as departures.

Third, and worst: none of these counts record what replaced Flock. The strictest tracker says plainly that it does not capture the replacement vendor. So the figure being cited as proof that Axon is displacing Flock holds no information about Axon at all.

Put the largest number in context and the scale claim shrinks further. Flock has about 5,000 police customers by the ACLU’s August 2026 count, on an installed base of roughly 120,000 cameras across 49 states. Take 214 localities at face value and that is near 4% of the police customer base over five years. Real, worth watching, and not an exodus. Our review of Flock Safety’s government contracts traces that installed base.

Does canceling Flock mean buying Axon?

No. The two best-documented recent cancellations prove it.

Eugene, Oregon took its cameras down entirely. All 57 Flock cameras came out. 55 were removed on December 19. The last two came down shortly after. Police Chief Chris Skinner had backed the technology, then reversed himself. A camera had been switched back on without police knowledge. Flock missed the city’s December 12 deadline to remove them, so city staff pulled them out starting December 18. There was no replacement vendor.

Fort Wayne, Indiana declined to renew, with no vote against. On August 26, 2026 the city council voted not to renew a contract worth about $120,000. The council is not going to another vendor. Members said they mean to work on new rules instead. Councilwoman Michelle Chambers put the vote this way: are “the safeguards surrounding that technology are strong enough to protect the people we represent”?

And some cities are renewing. Oklahoma City approved a Flock contract worth about $270,000 on August 18, 2026. The vote was 5 to 3, after nearly a month of delays, with one councilman abstaining. Council members later reported death threats over it. Whatever else is happening, this is a contested market, not a rout.

So a canceled Flock contract can mean four different things. Replaced by Axon. Replaced by another vendor. Not replaced at all. Or paused during talks. Only the first supports the premise of this article. It is the one nobody counts on its own.

What do Axon and Flock actually claim?

Both have made public statements that cannot be checked, in opposite directions.

Axon spoke on its Q2 2026 earnings call, held August 5, 2026. CEO and founder Patrick W. Smith said the firm is “seeing a significant number of agencies want to come over to Axon.” They switch, he said, “because of the controls and privacy work that we’ve done.” President Joshua Isner added a line of his own. He said “more and more customers that made a different decision up front are migrating to Axon.”

Smith also named the DeFlock movement outright. He cited “a couple high-profile uses where police employees were abusing their access to license plate reader data.” But no ALPR revenue figure and no customer count were given on the call. Our breakdown of Axon’s public sector contracts covers what the firm does disclose.

Flock told NPR it will have added “seven times the number of new customers that have left us this year.” It has also said new city deals beat nonrenewals about 10 to 1 in 2026.

A ratio with no base number and a refusal to answer are the same answer in different clothes. Seven times a small number is a small number. “A significant number” is not a number. Neither firm has put out a figure a third party can audit. That is why the activist-built counts became the story, patchy as they are. They were the only numbers anyone published.

Why are the agencies that switch, switching?

Politics, not product performance. In every documented case the driver is a council under voter pressure over data sharing. It is not a police department unhappy with how well the cameras read plates.

Denver’s contract is the clearest statement of what switching buys. No national database. Retention of 21 days. City ownership of the data. Audited access limited to Denver safety staff. Defined barred uses, including parking and traffic tickets. Those are answers to a political objection.

Two things follow that matter for anyone modeling this market.

The switch does not settle the real objection. Here is the EFF’s Matthew Guariglia: “You are replacing one color of camera for another color of camera, and those dangers that you were concerned about are still going to be there.” The ACLU’s August 2026 review says the same. A new vendor with no new policy could leave residents’ rights in equally bad or worse shape. Councils that switch and then stop will likely be back.

Coverage usually falls. Denver bought 50 cameras to replace 110. Both vendors charge about $3,000 per camera per year, so the unit price did not change. Denver Police Cyber Bureau Commander Cliff Barnes warned the cut could affect clearance rates. Lose half your coverage, then watch case outcomes move, and you have a new argument for council. It could cut either way.

For how the two systems compare on capability, retention and price, see Axon vs Flock: which ALPR system is better. For the wider vendor field, see our guide to Flock Safety alternatives and competitors.

What happens next?

The most important detail in the Denver deal is its length: one year.

A twelve-month replacement contract signed under political pressure is not a settled outcome. It is a re-bid set for 2027. There is a sitting vendor to displace, a live budget line, and a council that has already shown it will change vendors by a single vote. And there is a police department with a year of clearance-rate data to argue from.

That is the shape of this whole segment right now. Short terms. Contested votes. Active council calendars. Vendors on both sides who will be back in the room. The cancellation count is a lagging indicator of a political fight that already happened. The leading indicator is the agenda item.

How should this question be counted?

Count contract actions, not news mentions. Five rules give a defensible answer instead of a headline.

1. Count awards and terminations as separate records. A non-renewal, a termination for convenience, and a new award to another vendor are three events. Merge them and you get the 15x spread between trackers.
2. Resolve every cancellation to one of four outcomes. Replaced by Axon. Replaced by another vendor. Not replaced. Or paused pending renegotiation. Without this the count says nothing about displacement.
3. Anchor to the agency, not the locality. A city police department and a county sheriff in the same locality are two contracts. “214 localities” and “214 contracts” are different quantities.
4. Date by the governing-body action, not by the date a story ran. Coverage clusters. Decisions do not.
5. Record the term length. A 12-month replacement is a scheduled re-bid. It belongs in a pipeline, not a loss column.

Civic IQ tracks buying activity across more than 100,000 state, local and education agency bodies. That is the level of detail this question needs. The public counts disagree by an order of magnitude for one reason. They are built from news reports and crowd submissions, not from contract records.

Which ALPR and camera bids are open right now?

The forward-looking record is the one worth reading. These four were open on September 5, 2026. Status changes daily.

Each is named with its body, state and due date, so you can check any of them.

• City of Carlsbad Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) System and Related Services RFP26-4139IT, Carlsbad Municipal Water District, CA. Due September 10, 2026.
• Mississippi ITS Public Safety Video and Communication Equipment RFP 2026, Mississippi Department of Information Technology Services, MS. Due November 30, 2026.
• City of Springfield Security Camera Expansion and Video Management System Enhancements RFP LL27-22, City of Springfield, IL. Due September 10, 2026.
• Barbour County Commission Security Camera System Installation Bid 2026, Barbour County, WV. Due September 16, 2026.

The list worth more is the one nobody prints. It is the plate reader contracts up for renewal in your state in the next twelve months. Denver’s one-year term is not unusual. Each short term is a 2027 re-bid with a live budget line behind it. Ask Civic IQ for the ALPR contracts expiring in your state →

Related questions

Are Axon cameras replacing Flock cameras?

In a small number of documented cases, yes. Denver, Kenosha and Tonawanda have publicly moved from Flock to Axon. No group has published a verified count of Flock-to-Axon switches. And the largest published cancellation figure, 214 localities since 2021, does not record what replaced Flock in any of them.

How many cities have canceled Flock contracts?

It depends on who is counting and what they count. The strictest tracker, Finding Flock, verified 14 as of August 8, 2026, using named towns and public records. DeFlock reported about 98 since 2021 as of August 3, 2026, a figure that includes cities which only switched cameras off. Secure Justice reported 214 since 2021 as of August 31, 2026. These counts do not reconcile.

Did Denver replace Flock with Axon?

Yes. Denver City Council approved the Axon contract 7 to 6 on March 31, 2026. The deal put 50 Axon cameras in place of 110 Flock cameras for $150,000 over one year, with 21-day retention, no national database, and city ownership of the data.

Do cities that cancel Flock always buy another ALPR system?

No. Eugene, Oregon took down all 57 of its Flock cameras and did not replace them. Fort Wayne, Indiana voted 9 to 0 on August 26, 2026 not to renew a contract worth about $120,000, and said it is not moving to another vendor.

Is Axon cheaper than Flock?

No. The two price almost the same. Denver’s Axon contract came to $3,000 per camera per year, which matches Flock’s published co-op rate. Axon can lower total cost for agencies that already run Axon Evidence, because the plate reading extends a platform they pay for now.

How many agencies has Axon won from Flock?

Axon has not said. On its August 5, 2026 earnings call, CEO Patrick Smith said the company is seeing a significant number of agencies want to come over to Axon. He gave no figure. No ALPR customer count or revenue number was disclosed.

Is every city moving away from Flock?

No. Oklahoma City approved a Flock contract worth about $270,000 by a 5 to 3 vote on August 18, 2026. Flock says its new customer additions far outpaced departures in 2026, though it has not published the counts behind that claim.

Does switching from Flock to Axon address privacy concerns?

It addresses one specific concern. Plate data no longer enters a nationwide searchable network. It does not change that cameras record every passing vehicle, or that officers with valid logins can search the data. The EFF describes the swap as replacing one color of camera for another color of camera.

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How we verified this

Every count here is credited to the group that made it, with its date. The counts disagree. That is the point. Where two sources conflict, we show both. We do not average them. Vendor claims are quoted. We mark them unverified where no figure was published. That includes what Axon said on its own earnings call. Named city cases come from local news and council records.

Open bid items come from Civic IQ records pulled on September 5, 2026. Each is named with its issuing body, state and due date. So any reader can go check it. Claims here change weekly. This page carries a check date, and we review it monthly.

1. Finding Flock, “Flock Camera Cancellations: City Tracker,” verified count as of August 8, 2026. findingflock.com
2. Washington Examiner, “Flock controversial camera contracts canceled,” August 3, 2026, citing DeFlock. washingtonexaminer.com
3. Cybernews, “Flock camera contracts canceled by 214 American localities,” August 31, 2026, citing Secure Justice. cybernews.com
4. MLQ News, “At least 93 jurisdictions ended Flock relationships in August,” August 2026. mlq.ai
5. 404 Media, “Cities Are Ditching Flock, Immediately Replacing It With Axon License Plate Readers,” August 2026. 404media.co
6. Axon Enterprise, Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript, August 5, 2026. investor.axon.com
7. Denverite, “Flock’s replacement has fewer cameras and no national database,” March 18, 2026. denverite.com
8. ACLU of Colorado, “Denver City Council Approves New Axon Contract to Replace Flock,” April 1, 2026. aclu-co.org
9. WISH-TV, “Fort Wayne will not renew Flock camera contract,” August 26, 2026. wishtv.com
10. “Eugene takes down most of its license plate reader cameras.” yahoo.com
11. OKC FOX, “Oklahoma City Council approves controversial Flock camera contract,” August 18, 2026. okcfox.com
12. ACLU, Jay Stanley, “Beware of Other License Plate Surveillance Companies Besides Flock,” August 25, 2026. aclu.org
13. NPR, “Flock Safety alternatives: new names, same surveillance,” August 23, 2026. npr.org
14. Jalopnik, “Flock Cameras Coming Down Around The Country Only To Be Replaced By The Same Technology,” September 5, 2026. jalopnik.com